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It is often said, but it is rarely true. This was truly a historic week at the Supreme Court, with landmark decisions on health care and immigration, and important actions on campaign finance and free speech. Here are five of the top winners — and five of the top losers — as a result of the justices’ actions.

WINNERS

1. President Obama

No politician had more at stake this week than Barack Obama, and no politician was as big a winner. The president convinced Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican selection whose confirmation he opposed, to side with him on the landmark health-care ruling and in the Arizona immigration enforcement case. Obama, a believer in robust federal powers, found the high court friendly to his arguments that the federal government had the power to compel people to buy insurance and that states had no power to set their own immigration policies. The top it all off, Obama won the constitutional seal of approval from a Republican-majority court.

Ah, revenge is sweet. The deposed House Speaker declared victory — and vindication — yesterday when the high court upheld the law she fought so hard to pass. Now powerless in the House minority, Pelosi can be safe in the knowledge that she made history both as the first woman to serve as House Speaker and the chief architect of the most important domestic policy legislation thus far in the 21st century.

How happy was she?

Pelosi to Rep. George Miller of California: “What a great victory!”

Miller: “You bet your ass.”

Pelosi: “I did.”

Chief Justice John Roberts (Official photo)

3. John Roberts.

At least for a week, John Roberts is a hero of the left. (They must have forgotten every criminal justice opinion he’s ever written.) At the annual congressional baseball game Thursday night, Democrats held up signs declaring “Roberts MVP.”

Well, the Democrats’ hero is the Republicans’ goat, but Roberts received kudos from most nonpartisan legal scholars for shaping the court’s rulings this week and for beginning to shape his own identity as Chief Justice.

And even the most partisan Republican has to be pleased that Roberts convinced those four Democratic justices on the Supreme Court to call ObamaCare’s individual mandate a tax.

4. Corporate America

In the landmark 2010 campaign finance ruling in Citizens United, the high court effectively held that corporations were people and therefore entitled to free speech rights, which translated into unlimited campaign contributions. On Monday, the justices, in a 5-4 vote, refused to consider a North Dakota case to determine states can limit campaign spending by corporations. That could open the floodgates for unlimited corporate contributions in state races, not just in federal contests.

Roger Clemens (Getty Images)

5. Roger Clemens.

Well, the Major League Baseball pitching great didn’t win anything at the Supreme Court this week, but his perfect game in his perjury retrial is enough to earn him a spot on this list. The Rocket won a “not guilty” verdict from a federal court jury in just nine hours after nine weeks of testimony. And it was more than a “not guilty” verdict. The jurors thought he was an innocent man persecuted by an overzealous government.

LOSERS

1. Tenth Amendment conservatives.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, noted champion of the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, will be the first to admit that states’ rights took a beating at the high court. First, the justices ruled that Arizona could not adopt its own immigration policy and was limited to enforcing what the federal government had authorized. Then the court ruled that Congress had the right to regulate health-care nationally under its taxation powers.

“I kind of feel like I’m watching that old movie ‘The Godfather,’ and the American people looks the godfather in the face and he said ‘I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,’” Perry told Neil Cavuto on Fox News’ Your World program. “That offer is, ‘you’re going to buy my insurance. If you don’t I’m going to tax you.’ That is just unconscionable.”

The Supreme Court just shattered the Tea Party’s tea cups. In one week, in the Tea Party’s view, the nine unelected justices impinged upon the economic and religious liberty of all Americans and the rights of states to secure their borders. There’s only one solution for Tea Partiers: the ballot box. “We will not back down in November,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the Congressional Tea Party Caucus.

3. House Republicans

House Speaker John Boehner may have been guilty of counting his chickens before they hatched. “If the court does not strike down the entire (health-care) law, the entire House will move to repeal what’s left of it,” he said on the eve of the ruling. Well, what’s left is essentially the entire law. And the House can vote to repeal it again and again and again this year, but it won’t accomplish anything other than the venting of anger.

4. Honest veterans

In a case obscured by the health-care decision, the court also ruled Thursday that free-speech protections allow con men to claim that they won military medals that they never earned. In the “Stolen Valor” case, the justices struck down a 2006 federal law criminalizing false claims of military valor. The good news for veterans is that the court majority laid out a blueprint for passing an acceptable law that criminalized any attempt to profit from false claims. “Now that the Supreme Court has laid down this marker, I will be pushing for a vote on a version of the Stolen Valor Act that will pass constitutional scrutiny,” Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., said following the court’s decision.

5. CNN and Fox.

CNN and Fox News got the decision wrong. "Dewey beats Truman" anyone?

It was the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline of our day. (For those of you too young to remember, that’s the infamous Chicago Tribune headline declaring Republican Tom Dewey the winner of the 1948 presidential election.)

Two of the three cable news networks — CNN and Fox News — told us that the Supreme Court had ruled the employer mandate unconstitutional. The Twitterverse went wild, for a minute or two. By then, reporters had digested the entire opinion and learned that the Supremes had upheld the law. In an apology, CNN said later it “regrets that it didn’t wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate.’’ Fox, however, was unrepentant.

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Rick Dunham of the Houston Chronicle is a leading expert on journalists' use of social media and niche web sites. He created Texas on the Potomac in 2007. He also is the president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, the educational and charitable arm of the world's leading professional organization for journalists.

About Capitol Confidential

Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.